Words
Poem of the Week
Equestrienne (at the Circus Fernando)
- from Toulouse-Lautrec’s 1888-1889 oil on canvas
If not for the fall
she would be perched there still:
sidesaddle, delicate bones
of ankles crossed
creating that X
marker for sightline, pain.
A break - shatter -
crushed bones beneath
paneled tent: red, yellow, red
blood on earthen floor darkening beneath her.
Her palms - fingers splayed -
a reminder of momentum,
the sheer brilliance of gravity.
(Later-another tent,
another flash of ankle,
but not hers: pale
unfractured)
Horsehair: mane, bristles,
how a brush can speak,
hold the past in each stroke.
